The Lure of City Lights
by detective-sweetheart
Summary: They were jaded, and they both knew it, but then...the lure of city lights had been too much for them to walk away from.


**A/N: My muse decided, finally, that it wanted to poke at Munch and Fin, and the finale, therefore, this. SVU's not mine. **

* * *

"Used to be a point where I thought workin' in this place would be one of the coolest things ever."

The city sounds have been drifting up around him for a while now. He's lost track of how long he's been standing up here, but he still has no intentions of leaving just yet. And he doesn't have to turn around to know that someone has come up after him.

"There used to be a time when I thought being a murder police had to be the worst job in the world," John replies. "I proved myself wrong when I came up here."

Fin snorts. "Used to think the same thing about Narcotics, and then I transferred out," he says. "Didn't think there could be anything on the same level as having a partner take a bullet meant for you."

"I think we prove ourselves wrong a lot of the time," says John. "We think one thing, and then it turns out to be wrong, but we're so damn convinced that it has to be right, that we don't even consider it could be wrong."

"You know what pisses me off?" Fin asks, and then trails off. "I didn't think he was serious. When he said he was gonna tear everyone apart. I didn't think he meant it."

John knows exactly what his partner's talking about, and says nothing for a long moment, and then, he sighs before he speaks. "A lot of people make empty threats. This isn't your fault."

"Then why the hell do I feel like it is?" Fin asks, finally turning to face his companion. "All of this…that…he wouldn't have come after us if he hadn't been so damn determined to take me out."

"He didn't take you out, though," John points out. "Lake's only here because this unit's royally screwed itself over. You haven't done anything wrong."

"Yeah, well…" Fin trails off and shakes his head, suddenly disgusted. "Things ain't like they used to be."

And they aren't, either, and both of them know it, because the years have passed by and things have changed, more than they should have in some ways, but in other ways, exactly as they should have. And this latest attempt to tear the unit apart looks like it might just work.

"Olivia talked to IAD," says John, "They're still deciding what to do with her. Put her on desk duty while they figure it out."

"I heard," says Fin, mildly. "'Least she actually had the chance to go in front of 'em, before it all got dragged out in open court."

He pauses for a second and then goes on. "I'm surprised they didn't try and get into all the crap you did in Baltimore."

John smirks. "Oh, they tried," he says. "Couple of the old murder police called me, asked me what the hell was going on, so I told them. Department down there wouldn't let them have the records."

Fin laughs. He finds it almost odd that there's something to be amused about this soon after the acquittal.

"One of these days, you're gonna get nailed," he says, and John shrugs.

"One of my old partners told me I must've been born with a horseshoe up my ass," he says. "Guess that's why nothing happened. Suppose you could say that it'll all come down after I'm retired."

"Yeah, when they can't do anything to you," Fin says, dryly.

"That would defeat the purpose of being born with a horseshoe up my ass; if something were to happen now," says John, and then, "You ask me, you're pretty damn lucky yourself."

"You call this lucky?" Fin asks, sarcastically. "You're gettin' old, man. Bunch of family secrets just got dragged out in court…hell, I didn't even know 'bout half that mess…"

"Suppose there was a reason for that, huh?" John asks and Fin sighs.

"Yeah, there was a reason, I know there was a reason, but that don't change none of this," he replies. "Gettin' called on testing dirty was bad enough, but everything else…"

"I doubt you're the only cop that's ever tested dirty," says John, and Fin gives him a sideways look.

"Have you?" he asks. John shakes his head.

"No, but there've been near misses," he says. "Mind you, I gave it up a while ago, so we're not going there. But trust me when I say that all of us believe you've never used."

"That makes three against the department," says Fin. "You know I'm gonna get called on that again sooner or later."

"Department's only got to look at their records to know that it has nothing to do with anything," says John. "You were Narcotics. Of course you're gonna test dirty when you've been undercover for heaven only knows how long."

Fin wonders for a moment exactly what his partner knows about this and then decides he doesn't want to know, because it'll probably only lead to another argument, and he's had enough of those to last him for a while.

"They overturned that dealer's conviction," he says, finally. "All because I waited to hand in the damn evidence."

"Thirty-six hours, you'd have been dead on your feet," says John, "I shouldn't say this, but they could've made an exception."

"Yeah, but then they'd have had to make an exception for everyone," Fin points out. "You know the worst part about it?"

"What's that?" John asks, moving so that he's leaning back against the guardrail that keeps them from falling.

"My kid found the drugs, and the gun," Fin tells him. "He's all of ten years old, and he finds it, and he tells his 'cousin'…that's how Darius knew about it."

"Funny how things like that come back to bite us in the ass, isn't it?" John asks, acidly, and Fin shakes his head.

"Not really," he says. "If there was one thing I never wanted my kid to see…it was that. My work. And now, here he is, twenty-something, and he knows exactly what I do for a living."

"You catch criminals," says John. "So do I. There's nothing wrong with that."

"Yeah, well…I work too much, and I wasn't ever around." says Fin. "Suppose you could say that's why things are the way they are between us."

"At least you're managing somewhat of a relationship. Could be worse. You could be not talking at all."

"It was that way for a while. Back when I got shot…it was all I could do to get him to talk to me, not that I could blame him."

"Things change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes…not."

Fin laughs again, and shakes his head. This is one of those typical conversations between the two of them, where they start out talking about one thing, but somehow it turns into something else.

"Guess you could say this time's one of those times where they didn't, then," he says. "What d'you think will happen to the unit?"  
"I don't know," says John. "Part of me wants to think that we're all going to stick together, the other part isn't so sure. Liv's up to her neck with IAD, Elliot's trying to deal with his kid being arrested, and you and I…"

"We got our own issues," says Fin, finishing where his partner leaves off. "I get it."

There is silence for a long moment, and then he speaks again. "I used to stand on the rooftop sometimes, when I was a kid," he says. "Used to look out at the rest of Manhattan and think how cool it would be to work here someday."

"And now you are," says John, "What do you think about it now?"

Fin shrugs. "It was all right when it first started," he says, "Now, I don't know. Bugs the hell out of me that things are so damn uncertain all the time."

"Could be worse," says John. "It could be raining, and you could be back in Narcotics, playing someone you don't want to be."

Back in Narcotics. For a moment, Fin wishes he was back in the old unit, with all the old faces, in a place where he didn't have to worry about things like this. But he's not; he's stuck there, in the Special Victims Unit, with a partner who knows him better than he cares to think about, and two other detectives who always seem to be in some sort of trouble, and a high-profile case that has them all scrambling to find themselves again.

"There's life for you," he says, after a while. "You're always wantin' something you know you're never gonna have."

"What is it that you want, though?" John asks. "Other than the obvious, that is? And 'I don't know' doesn't qualify as an answer."

"I want the crime rate to drop," Fin says, half-sarcastically and half-seriously. "I want people to get the hell over themselves, and I want all of this to go away, but we both know that ain't gonna happen."

They are too jaded for their own good, and both of them know it. Both of them have seen too much to ever go back to the way they were in earlier years, before they became police officers.

"I used to stare out my window, sometimes, and look towards Baltimore," says John. "Used to pretend I could see the lights and that I'd be part of the city someday."

"And you were," says Fin, half-mocking the older man's earlier comment. "What did you think about it?"  
"Seventeen years as a murder police turned me into what I am now," says John. "Sometimes I'm proud of it, sometimes I'm not. But when you're a kid, you think you can take on the world, because everyone tells you that you can."

"And what happens when you find out that you can't?" Fin asks. "Then what happens? You're left with someone who either can't figure out where the hell they're going, or they figure it out and they're going the wrong damn way."

"And then you have someone who figures out where they're going, and it turns out they're going the right way." John pauses for a moment and turns so that he's facing the same way his partner is, both of them looking down at the city. "Going towards the lights isn't a bad thing unless you've been shot."

Silence, and then both of them laugh, even though it isn't really funny, what they're laughing at.

"Sometimes I think the lights are a lot more than they're made out to be," John continues, once they've stopped. "I bet you half the kids in this place look out at the lights and think about how cool it'll be to be a part of it all."

"And then you have the ones who grew up and figured out that it ain't all that it's made out to be," says Fin. "You think the lights have anything to do with where we decide to go?"  
"Yeah," says John, "I do. I think that when we're young, we're so convinced that anything will be better than where we are that we can't wait to grow up and go into the lights, and when we do…we find out that things are sometimes harder than they're supposed to be."

There's silence for a long, lingering moment between the two partners, then, broken only by the sounds of the city around them. And then Fin speaks again.

"Guess the lure of city lights means more to some people than it does to others, then."


End file.
